Spiritual kung fu

Let’s talk about spirituality. Originally it was the term used in original Christianity before great divide in 1054 and before appearance of Protestantism. Later is stayed in eastern orthodox church to describe a specific way of life that is oriented toward Holy Spirit. It would take too much time to precisely describe what real, Christian spirituality is. Similar practices can be found on far east in Buddhism and some not so well known religions.

Today, term spirituality is hijacked by New Agers and it doesn’t really have any definition, for every person it means whatever that person wants it to mean. This New Age spirituality became very popular and very often people are attracted to spirituality like as a fashion. They want to wear some supposedly spiritual outfit, and walk around with very serene expression on their face, and talk endlessly about what they think is important for “spiritual growth”.  

“Spiritual” practice is a mish mash of everything these people pick up along the way from internet, yoga classes, sporadic lecture by some “guru” … each person has its own specific spiritual belief and “practice” made of different proportion of Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Esoteric arts, Qigong, sometimes martial arts, ect. They mix things that cannot be mixed and make their own eclectic religion.

As for the “practice” their spiritual practice is consisted from only one segment, endless talking about being spiritual. Some try to meditate or do some “energy” exercises and even hallucinogenic drugs. While originally spirituality comes with great personal sacrifice and involve deprivation of sleep, extreme fasting, constant prayer, hard labor, celibacy, helping those no one else want to help (terminal illness patients, abandoned children with heavy developmental problems, ect, things that real Christian monks still do), wove of silence, and many other things which are extremely physically and mentally demanding, New Age spiritualty goes with soft beds, internet, good food, no physical and mental restriction what so ever.

What New Age actually develops is sense of self value, there are no more egoistic people than new age spiritual seekers. They have extremely high opinion about them self and they are extremely selfish without exception. Another thing that New Age spiritualty helps is moral and ethics, it kills them completely. These people lie and cheat with such ease that average sociopath looks like an amateur. Also this spiritual path kills empathy and develops an ability to politely insult and then leave the victim with a blessing before there is any chance to respond to the insult.  Another feature of new age spiritualty is an ability to judge everyone and everything from a position of high spiritual and moral authority which is fake as it can be but those people really believe they are better than others.

Passive aggressiveness which goes with constant comparison and competition with others is another thing that goes with new age spiritual practice. Instead of making people in their company feel uplifted, calmer, at peace or inspired they can often leave people feeling drained, belittled or anxious. The true legacy of true spirituality is how people leave feeling after being in their company, we should all leave feeling a lot lighter, and brighter about life. Be with a new age spiritual practitioner feeling is always  like our soul has been slapped in the face with a mix of spiritual insults, negativity and a dash a competitiveness. Many of these “people” are involved in martial arts and great percentage call them self teaches or Sifus. A side the fact  that martial arts has nothing in common with spirituality on any level , in fact martial arts are complete opposite of any spiritual practice, these “spiritual” people can turn your life to hell if you get involved with them, they will suck you confidence and self respect like a vampire, they will put you on a wild goose chase and you will waste time and money in pursuit of something that doesn’t actually exist , except in the heads of these people. Kung fu is full of frauds as it is, people who are selling “lineages” , “originals” ,”secrets” , “tradition” , everything but real fighting skills, with these “spiritual” idiots situation becomes unbearable.

Real vs Modern kung fu

There is a wide spread belief among Kung Fu practitioners that masters of the past had superior fighting skills. That belief is true but not in a way people think those skills looked like. After more than a decade of research I have pretty good picture how training and kung fu in general looked like during Ming and Qing dynasties period up to the end of Taiping rebellion.  

Everything people today believe about kung fu in the past came from Hong Kong movies and it is completely wrong. First and foremost kung fu was a trade,the way people earn for living, but completely different from how people earn for living with kung fu today. While today most kung fu "Masters" and "Grandmasters" never had a fight in their life and they are basically selling everything else except real martial skills in the past kung fu was practiced only for one purpose- fighting. That fighting was not bare hand fighting which is in essence harmless but real weapon based fighting where winner is the person ho stay alive and looser is dead. People practiced kung fu  to find job in military or security. We have to remember that China during the end of Ming and during entire time of Qing dynasty was dangerous, mostly lawless land where anyone and everyone was potential prey for many gangs that operated outside urban areas, Some of the gangs had thousands of members and were like little armies. Traveling was extremely dangerous and armed escort was in great demand. To be member of caravan or ship armed escort or bodygurad of any kind person needed serious fighting skills because fighting could not be avoided and fighting would be to the death. Joining army or law enforcement also guarantied at least some fights to the death, especially army which was always campaigning against either rebels or outlaws. 

In those conditions kung fu training looked much different from today's way of training. People needed to be ready, physically and psychologically, for ruthless fights with ruthless people they will have in the future and training was concentrated to develop necessary skills and attributes for exactly those conditions. Training looked almost the same as today's special military or police force's training with only one difference, it was more demanding, physically and psychologically because physical strength was essential for fighting and close quarter fighting with all kind of bladed weapons where heads, limbs and internal organs fly all over the place in not a sight everyone can withstand. It was more important to be able to hold shield up for an hour or two than perform visually pleasing movement. Techniques were very simple, straightforward with only one goal, to kill the opponent in a shortest possible time. If we look old military fighting manuals we can see how simple fighting techniques were. Large number of complicated movements can only confuse a fighter during the fight and lead to his death. In any kind of real fight there is no time for stupidity we see today in kung fu, no one in the right mind would try two or three block on one attack, If we check old manuals we see that techniques either as based on positioning and proper angling which would completely move the fighter out of the way of the attack and simultaneously attack the opponent , or block in one move and continue that same move in counter attack. We can see simple and effective tactics and techniques easy to learn, easy to practice under pressure and most importantly easy to apply on the field of battle under the stress of fighting. That is why training was almost inhumane  comparing with  standards of  even best special forces  today.  

Schools didn't exist , kung fu was family business , just like carpentry or smiting .   There was no masters, grandmasters  lineages, 'original" styles and all other crap we have in kung fu today because no one cared. People fought for living, those who survived didn't give a shit about all the nonsense we have today. It those times it was impossible to have a fraud , because people who could not fight would simply die and there was no point of making up stories about fighting abilities because everyone knew how to fight and no one would fall on those claims, bu someone could go and check. People didn't care about all the politics and false claims we have today not they cared about lineage, they only cared to survive until they can retire and maybe pass what they knew to the next generation. There was no masters simply because something like that did not exist, only very experienced teacher and probably close relative.

Kung fu was completely devoted to fighting, any other crap added later did not exist in the systems. If we could ask Qing dynasty kung fu practitioner if his kung fu is Daoist or Buddhist he would probably die laughing or be very worried about the mental health of the person who asked such question. In those days kung fu was a way of spirituality and enlightenment as much as butchery in a slaughter house.

Today we know what kung fu is , in what kind of septic whole it turned. I stopped  practicing kung fu , at least what people today consider kung fu and turned my practice toward real practice that was used before Taiping rebellion. In my opinion that i the only way for kung fu to survive. If not, if kung fu dies in a generation or two , let it be, everything without real purpose dies eventually, that is natural order of things